In Place
by reenka
Summary: Drowning, lost memories, stolen time, denial, deception and the search for understanding. Harry and Draco by the sea, neither able to move forward or remember why they had driven themselves to this point. A mystery-- or a revelation-- in three parts. H/D
1. Default Chapter

disclaimer: jkr owns the souls of harry & draco.  
warning: if slash scares you, phone home now  
a/n: um. this may not make sense, and if so, tell me, i was too lazy to write a plot anyway ^.^  
  
  
~~in place.  
  
You think you're drowning, but you don't know the half of it. You think you can touch me but you have barely scratched the surface layer of skin. You think you're right, but you're just mumbling in your sleep.   
  
Your mouth seeks out mine when you sleep, your hair falling into your eyes, your expression so innocent and trusting and stupid. I pause, just to stare at you, to marvel at your weakness. The way you belong to me. I can't stand it. I could push you away, I know it, but then you would go. You've got pride. Spirit. Courage, they say. You will do what you have to, but then, so will I.  
  
I brush back your hair from your face, and imagine a moment when that would make me smile. You'd washed up, near enough to death that even I barely recognized you. You still don't remember, not all of it. I contemplate telling you, but that would end the game, wouldn't it. I know you've forgotten a lot, but you've got your principles, still, of that I'm certain. I can see you trying to wake up, to break free, like you know you're someone else, are meant to be doing something else, and it's just a matter of time before you know who that person is, and what he's supposed to be doing. More and more, you'd forgotten I existed, in your newfound dedication to the Cause. It only took one ounce of admiration seeping in to make me remember why I hated you, but then, I was never masochistic.  
  
You wrap your arm around my chest and smile contentedly in your sleep. You don't look a thing like yourself anymore, and sometimes I wonder if this is all a mistake, and you're not really Harry Potter at all, and there's someone who looks just like you, except he'd kick me right now and scream bloody murder, someone who's laying like this, smiling like this, next to that red-headed girl with the shy smile and the iron will. I nearly convince myself and then you crack one eye open, still not really awake and mutter something that sounds like, "Malfoy, gotosleepalready, you dolt."  
  
Doubting you takes energy I'm starting to have less and less of. I realize that this drowning thing is really a grand old irony, you see. It's not like I'd saved you. We'd just switched places.  
~~ 


	2. right

disclaimer: jkr owns the souls of harry & draco.  
warning: if slash scares you, phone home now  
a/n: um. this may not make sense, and if so, tell me, i was too lazy to write a plot anyway ^.^  
  
  
~~right.  
  
Right now, when I look at you, I smile, because you don't know, do you. And that's alright, because you need to think I don't know, you need to think I'm lost, and you'd found me. And maybe I was, and maybe that's not news, anyway.  
  
You think I'm sleeping, but I'm not. My eyelashes lowered in the semi-darkness, I'm all about stealth and cunning, but I guess you wouldn't be all that proud, because I watch you. I watch you, and I'm starting to glow more and more, because while I don't know what you're thinking, I know you're watching me too, a strange little smile on your face.  
  
You brush my hair back, and I have to stifle a sigh. Minute by minute, hour by hour, gesture by gesture, you keep me as drowned as in the first moment. There are so many ways.   
  
I can't really believe you think all this is unconscious, but then, you were never really all that good at seeing past your own nose, were you? You never noticed me, really, did you. You only noticed The Boy Who Lived, he who was your rival, he who dared challenge you. That's alright, that's what everyone saw. I'm enjoying this, you know, this respite from myself. I'm having so much fun, it's like I'm on vacation from myself, and I'm finally getting to do all those things I missed out on, all those things I couldn't get away with, when everyone was watching my every move. You study me, like I'm some kind of unknown, skittish animal, liable to jump and bite as soon as lick, and I like that. I twirl you around and chuckle at the consternation on your face, the conflict between seeing just how far I'll go, and reasserting your facade. But I won't tell, will I? I don't even know who I am, after all.  
  
You smell too good, when my nose is buried in your shoulder, and I just have to sigh. You taste like someone's last dream before dying, sweet as blueberries, pure as stream-water. When our knees brush together, when our fingers touch, I tingle all over, and I feel like if I just closed my eyes, and -wished-, I could do magic, just like that. Did you know that I think it's worth it, every single day I tear away from my life and throw up into the air, like a glass ball, only to be caught by your hands each time. So you may guess why I smile like an idiot, and I'm sure you do, but I don't think you'll guess right. I'm playing your game, Draco, and I'm winning.  
  
It's true enough I don't remember what I was doing, sinking into the sea that night, and what led up to it. It's also true that I don't want to know. If this forgiveness is an illusion, if this light is false, I don't think I want to know. I joke to myself, thinking that you feel more right than you have any right to be. Right now, the present binds me, and I am so much more than willing. I am asking.  
  
You feel more right than my every conviction, so much that you are beyond them. You are beyond everything I ever knew, and ever since I saw you again, I lost all idea of what I was supposed to be feeling, because truth is, all I could feel was you.  
  
Don't get me wrong, I know very well what regret is. I'd always done the best I could, but so often, it wasn't enough. I'm not fooling myself-- I know this isn't enough. Soon enough the game will be over, and I know better than to imagine either of us will win. I've become selfish and possibly cruel. If I could forget even more, I would, but this is all I have. This space I've made, where I could keep still, and want you. I steal kisses at night, since you keep me at arm's length during the day, and as much as I am able, I peel away layers of you, trying to go deeper and deeper. As deep as I can go. I don't have a secret plan, though. There's just this, right now.  
  
Now, I just want your mouth. I just want your mouth pushing against me, and your hips leaning into mine, and your knees to not hold you up as well as they seem to, all the time. I just want your breath, morning, day and night, ever since I'd first tasted it that day, when you thought you'd save me because I couldn't save myself. And I'd show you how untrue that is, except I don't think I want to. I like to think I can't save myself from this. I like to think no one could expect me to fight now. And though my progress is sporadic, we've got all the time in the world. I believe that. It's just, the time is all right now. And while I don't know when this need started, that much is here to stay.   
~~  
  
It was all he could see. He was drowning in blue. It was all around him, spinning circles around his eyes, sinking into his mouth, just as he was sinking into -it-. At first, all he could see was sky, and then it broke into pieces, and he realized he was staring into someone's eyes. For long minutes he had no idea who was behind those eyes, but he never wanted to stop looking. Everything was really quiet except for the whooshing, swaying sound still trapped in his head, seemingly without beginning or end. He thought distantly that the other's eyes weren't supposed to be blue at all, it was wrong, somehow, but that wasn't helping. The more he looked, the more he could see the sky and the ocean and everything around him, contained and reflected inside them. He didn't have the presence of mind to expect anything, or even to notice much. He knew, as clearly as he could at the time, that those eyes were usually a clear, wintery color, silver flashing near the center in anger or amusement. And maybe they were, still, and the blue was merely illusion, a trick of the light. He was spectacularly disinclined to investigate.  
  
``Do you know your name?" someone said. The voice came from somewhere far away, whereas the eyes were seemingly everywhere, almost inside him.  
  
He didn't answer, and in fact, he couldn't.   
  
I know yours, he thought.  
~~  
  
You think you're seeing me as you'd never be able to, were things "right", but really, the reverse is true. Ever since the moment I opened my eyes, and there were yours, glittering with silver shadows and concern, I had to know. I had to know you.  
~~  
  
How often do I forgive myself for these sins?   
  
And how often do I forgive you?  
  
Every time. Right now.  
~~ 


	3. salt and desire

disclaimer: jkr owns the souls of harry & draco.  
warning: if slash scares you, phone home now  
a/n: um. this may not make sense, and if so, tell me, i was too lazy to write a plot anyway ^.^  
  
  
~~salt and desire  
  
Once again, there was only sky, and the sound of waves, and the salt on their tongues, and the need between them, pushing them in different directions. So they walked.  
  
A step, and another, and another, and it was a surpise to both of them that with each step one of them made, the other matched it. The rhythm had to break, that much was always obvious. Just one more moment, one more, and another, and then there would be none. This was the end, and they weren't looking at each other. Again and again, Harry fought the urge to find the other boy's fingers, memorize the grooves and textures of those hands, rest for one more moment in that softness. He clenched his fingers and did nothing, instead. Draco walked with a sway to his hips, rocking slightly on his heels, his steps sure and his pace constant. Harry just walked. Home was too far away and too near to rush to. Now, now that it didn't matter, now he remembered everything, with complete, excruciating clarity. He could taste every moment, clear and piercing and always strangely mixed with the inescapable, pervasive tang of salt, whether tears or ocean or both.  
  
The sky was smooth and grey, arcing above them, translucent and opaque at once, in its different ways. Harry was reminded of the silver screen in a huge theater, with scenes of possible destinies playing themselves out, larger than life, while they weren't looking, while they stole glances at each other. The thought didn't make him smile. He didn't know quite what was real, and what was desire, not anymore, not exactly, and it made him distrust a lot of things, most of all himself.  
  
Need creates possibilities, opens windows to worlds only just imagined. They had both needed to believe, in their different ways. They had walked away, one step and another and then, looking back, they didn't even see shadows, and all they could hear was the ocean beating inside them, all around them, the song that called them away into watery oblivion. It was just a matter of time, they'd both known it, and by unspoken agreement, it ended where it began, on a deepening breath and the smooth, endless lilt of blue ocean. They were still walking, and finally Harry, of course, had to ask.  
  
"Where are we going?" he said, as softly as he could.  
  
"Just walk."  
  
"But...."  
  
"No more need to play the victim, now," Draco said, as quietly, then.  
  
So they stopped, still standing side by side, still not looking at each other. Harry walked the two steps to be in front of Draco. He had no idea what to say to him anymore, now that it seemed everything they'd ever said to each other, good or bad, was a lie, couldn't be trusted.  
  
Harry stared into misty grey for a long time, before he remembered. Yes, he was going to lean forward, yes. He was going to put his hand on Draco's cheek, yes. "But...." Harry swallowed, painfully, his throat parched and not a trace of moisture in his mouth. The ironies didn't escape him, of course. His mouth worked, but all that came out was a broken whisper. "You... touched me."  
  
His thumb was tracing the pale contours of Draco's mouth, slowly, ever so slowly. He thought his heart might stop. "It means nothing, Potter," Draco said, in a voice as raw as his own, because that was what they said to each other.  
  
His cheek brushed against Draco's, and he trembled, balancing on this moment, knowing any second now he'll fall. He could feel Draco's eyelashes fluttering against his skin, delicate as a feather drifting down to earth.   
  
"Fuck destiny," he mouthed against the soft curve of Draco's ear.  
  
He could feel the cool, even surface of the other boy's skin sliding past his own, and then it was gone, and Draco had broken away, and Harry was still leaning forward, wanting, needing, suspended in thin air. He licked his lips, and tasted salt and a tiny hint of pale, translucent skin.  
  
Draco's fingers were lightning-quick and surprisingly gentle as he turned Harry's head around to face him. Their eyes locked once again, and this time, there was no doubt. There was no missing this moment, and what it entailed. Their faces inclined at the same time, slowly drifting closer, painfully closer, until their lips were but a breath apart. Even now, Draco smiled, and it was no longer clear, whether it was with pain or sadness or his old, stale arrogance, though the lines were almost always blurred.  
  
"Are you sure?" he whispered, his lips nearly upon Harry's now.   
  
Harry couldn't have replied if his life depended on it. His hands were scrambling to find purchase at the back of Draco's head, pulling him forward, smashing their mouths together with sudden force. Harry was tired of waiting, of balancing. If he was going to fall, he was going to do it like he meant it. He devoured, he plundered, he consumed. Draco was gasping and moaning and melting, just as he was, and that was all that mattered. Their bodies were fluid and jagged and infinitely soft and inviting, all at once, and they were all those things in harmony, together now. Harry's fingers were moving of their own volition across Draco's chest, burrowing into the rough fabric stretched across it, finding purchase and pulling, tearing, ripping.  
  
His mind was a fog of desperation and need and a sudden, blinding-hot desire the likes of which he had never imagined being capable of. His tongue was dipping swiftly down the slope of Draco's jaw, finding all the sensitive spots to make Draco gasp and shiver and bare his neck in wordless surrender. His tongue on Draco's neck, his hand splayed on Draco's ribs, his hip wedged between Draco's thighs--   
  
And so it ended. They rocked together, Harry's salt-streaked face buried in Draco's shoulder, and he was smiling, and he was dancing, and he was flying, and it was everything, because it was like nothing else. Harry could feel the surf pounding in his ears, still, drowning out everything else, drowning him, and he welcomed it. He was lost in salty oceans, and his need only grew, his desire as ravenous as in the very first moment he tasted the other's skin and tears and the salty tang of the blood of his heart. And so it began.  
~~ 


End file.
